Mike Lowe has covered the New England Patriots since 1999 for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram and has had a nice view of their emergence as one of the NFL’s premier franchises.
He’s been at the paper since 1982 and has covered everything from a Little League World Series to the Summer Olympics. He is married to Tracie and they have three children and two grandchildren.
Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeLowePPH.

Brady, pygmies and Big Vince

Tom Brady had yet another good joint practice against Washington on Tuesday as the teams prepare for their Thursday night preseason opener.

And once again he spoke about how much the team was getting out of these joint practices. Tuesday’s lasted over three hours.

“Well, we got a ton of reps,” he said. “Yesterday we got about 80 or 90 reps.Today was probably pretty similar. Typically you don’t get that in a given week. We got a lot of work against a pretty good defense. There are a lot of different things that they do. They have some really good skill players on defense, some very good corners and safeties.”

According to the Boston Herald’s Jeff Howe count, Brady didn’t miss many passes in either 7-on-7 or 11-on-11 drills, completing all but three of his passes to Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola and Brandon LaFell – the three guys who figure, other than tight end Rob Gronkowski, to be his top targets.

LaFell, at 6-foot-2, gives Brady a much-appreciated different look at wide receiver. Amendola is listed at 5-11 and Edelman 5-10.

“I’ve got some of the little pygmies out there like Julian and Danny and it’s nice to have a little bigger guy out there from time to time who has a bigger catch radius,” said Brady. “Hopefully Danny and Julian don’t get mad at me for saying that. They won’t. They know I’m joking.”

Brady said that the long practices and high humidity are good for the team this time of year.

“Yeah, it builds mental toughness,” he said. “You see where you’re at. It’s certainly not easy to come out here and be out here for three hours and every drill is competitive and every drill you want to do the right thing. But that’s where the mental toughness comes into play. You have to hunker down and see where you’re at. Our guys have worked pretty hard the last couple of days.”

One clear sign of the difference between the Patriots and Washington: when practice ended, Bill Belichick had them run sprints; Washington didn’t.

– Washington’s new head coach, Jay Gruden, had this to say about Brady: Poetry in motion. Hall of Famer, best of all time.

– The play of the day came when big Vince Wilfork intercepted a Robert Griffin III pass and, according to the media there, moved pretty well with the ball. After practice, RG3 had this to say: I’m not going to sit here and celebrate that stuff.

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